The Lord of the Rings/Trivia: Difference between revisions

** J.R.R. Tolkien tried at least three times to write a sequel to the Lord of the Rings. One such attempt, with the working title The New Shadow, was published by his son Christopher in The People of Middle Earth, which contained much of his father’s unfinished work. Set 220 years after the destruction of the One Ring, after the death of Alagorn and during the last days of the reign of his heir, Eldarion (the story possibly resulting in his death); elves had vanished entirely and dwarves were becoming more and more distant, and orcs are, the subject of mockery, being at most boogeymen used by parents to scare children. The thirteen pages have quite a lot of exposition; mostly it consists of a young man named Saelon talking to Borlas, the youngest son of Beragond (for those who don’t remember him, he was Pipin’s friend who prevented Denethor's guards from burning Faramir alive and then stopped Denethor from killing Faramir personally). Borlas is thus now be a very old man and one of the few still-living men in Gondor who remembers Sauron’s reign of terror, which to most is an old, barely remembered story. His discussion with Ceylon is that of mysterious disappearances in the night, and someone named Herumore, who is only mentioned. He discusses a concept called the Dark Tree, which states that when Evil is ignored, [[As Long as There Is Evil|it spreads unchecked and becomes stronger]]. Saelon then invites the older man to come with him late at night; Borlas decides to do so, saying he “can still smell the old evil and know it for what it is”. And that’s where the unfinished work ends. Possibly the story would involve some sort of cult devoted to Sauron or Morgoth, waiting to strike when everyone had forgotten they had ever been a threat, though since other works stated that Aragon’s legacy would endure for a hundred generations, it seems the forces of Good would eventually triumph. While few doubt it would be well-written and well-received, there are likely many reasons why Tolkien abandoned this project. ForVia onehis own explanation, it was too much of a [[Genre Shift]] from ''Lord of the Rings'', going from high-fantasy to low-fantasy while shifting from an epic adventure to a darker conspiracy thriller. Critics have pointed out that the theme of a "forgotten evil" is incoherent with the original story, as it seems unlikely Aragon would have been so foolish as to let the memory of Sauron fade. EvenIn morethe soend, givenit hismay ownhave explanation,been it seemsthat he could not have written such a work without cheapening the heroes’ epic victory in the original novel, so maybe it was for the best. It seems Tolkien knew that sometimes with great works of fiction, [[Sequelitis|quality does not equal quantity.]] [https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/The_New_Shadow Read more about it here.]